The Magnus Archives - MAG 80.1 - Season 2 Q+A Part 1

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

Jonny and Alex answer your questions about Season 2! As Alex mentioned at the top of the episode, you can really help us out by filling out the survey linked below, which will allow us to have more relevant ads attached to the Magnus archives (so maybe you'll hear about things you're actually interested in). http://acast.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=4d0eef25de91974d288d73537&id=88556789ba&e=0ec8818b19 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi everyone, Alex here with a couple of messages ahead of today's bonus episode. Firstly, just a quick warning. We realised after recording that we had answered so many questions that there was no way it would fit into one episode. With that in mind, we decided to split the Q&A into two parts. You can expect the second half next week, but it does mean today's episode ends slightly abruptly, so our apologies for that. Secondly, you'll no doubt have noticed that we've been running ads

with the Magnus Archives for a while now. We always want this podcast to be free to listen to, so that means we need the extra income these adverts provide to help cover our production costs. As part of this process, we now need to provide some information about what kind of listeners we have so that we can get better paying adverts. And that's where you come in. If you head over to RustyQuill.com or follow the direct link in the show notes, you'll find a short questionnaire to fill in.

All information you provide is anonymous and you don't need to answer anything you don't want to. It's super easy and takes less than five minutes, but we would hugely appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it in. It's a great way to show us your support without spending any money, and it will genuinely help us to make more free content available in the future. That's everything for now, so thanks in advance from everyone at Rusty Quill, and we hope you enjoyed today's episode. Hi, and welcome to the Q&A at the end of Season 2.

How are you feeling, Johnny? Relieved and eager. Eager? Raring to go at season three. Ah, well, you've changed your tune. None of this, oh, what are we going to do? Well, I mean, we've had a long discussion about what we're going to do and it's, oh, it's nasty. It's not nice. Right, so we have quite a lot of questions to get through this time. Right, well, I will try to keep my so we are we are going to be blasting through a number of questions i try and keep them quick and i apologize in advance it's it's a running joke that i do not know how to pronounce like basic people names so we'll i'll do the best i can sure so this first question is from at

pluviosity on twitter section 31 seems to be almost as shady as the archives. Will we ever hear from Basira again? Obviously, that's quite a spoiler heavy question. I will say that Section 31 is, and Basira, the archive is certainly not done with them. But at the same time, they're probably, Section 31 is not going to be as much of a focus, I think, as it was in

season two yeah fair enough um moving on i have a few from canon long shots sure are there any real world people aside from the single most obvious one you that any of the characters or statement givers are based on to be honest john the archivist is not actually that much like me aside from sharing a name but i don't really know i think i generally tend to take aspects of either myself or people i know and then extrapolate them into characters well you have a massive knack for taking every single person that we know who is both involved and not involved in production and stealing their names to make all logistics i'll take their names to make all logistics a complete nightmare. I'll take their names because I need a lot of names and you guys have some fine names that I can have.

But in terms of the actual characters, I tend to take elements of people I know and flesh them out rather than importing people wholesale. Yeah, I think that's a lot safer as well. From personal experience, there are very few people who when they see themselves down on a page go oh this is a good thing yeah okay uh especially if i'm gonna kill especially if you're gonna kill horribly yeah fair point okay um will the magnus theme tune be replaced by band on the run for the duration of season three we couldn't get the licensing licensing's really expensive we we tried tried Carry On My Wayward Son. Walking in Memphis, but you'd be surprised

how few statements you can really get just from Memphis. I'm going to be doing my own cover of Band On The Run, Acapella, but we're still waiting to hear back from Legal on that one. As a percentage, how many of audience questions should we expect to be solved in inverted commas by the end of the show do you imagine it being sort of fairly open-ended with room for people to discuss no one really knowing what's happening or are we looking at a tight wrap-up oh uh that's a surprisingly tricky question a lot of it depends on i mean especially uh percentage wise a lot of it depends

on how much um store you put by smaller mysteries i think most big questions will have either answers or closed discussions if that makes sense i think there'll probably be a lot of competing theories about the exact nature of certain things that happen but i don't think anyone's going to be walking away actively confused but similarly we couldn't answer every single red string and nuanced thing because otherwise we the last season would just be q and a's there wouldn't be any content left next question's from isn't grim i think i'm saying that right was the thing that lightning describes as having too many teeth and limbs like knives the same entity, or at least the same kind

of entity, as the werewolf from Magnus 31? I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that they're not the exact same entity, but they're, you could call them brothers. They're of the same ilk. Next one's from Kia.

Where do you find, well find well meet all of our incredible guest voice actors so not not to be honest mainly people we know because for the first two seasons we haven't been in a position to really pay voice actors and we're both i think very keen on professional work should be absolutely compensated. Sure. Luckily, we both come from very dramatic sort of backgrounds. So we have a store of people who we've been, well, we've been burning through them. No, you've been killing them all. I've been, we've been burning them. You've been burning them.

Okay, another question again from Kia. How have you felt about the fandom reacting to the major moments? As an example, Michael appearing for the first time. I mean, generally beforehand quite nervous. After the fact, gratified. So far, at least. Because whenever you have a big moment, a big reveal, there's always that sense of, what if they don't like it?

What if they take the wrong things away from it what if i've got this big revelation and no one understands what's going on anymore so far every significant moment that's been like that i've been absolutely overwhelmed by the reaction though see from my perspective i always think of it in terms of a game where you have your pieces and you have it set up and you think you know how it's going to play, but eventually you just kind of have to let it play out and hope. Yeah. And that's the scary bit, certainly, at my end.

Next question's from Quinzelade. Does Johnny read the fan fiction we write about his show? Right. Well, the short answer is no. The long answer is I did write at the very beginning when there wasn't a lot a lot of this comes down to not wanting to inadvertently steal or indeed be accused of it if something that happens in the show is too close to something that happens in fan works i mean essentially once there's more fan fiction than you can easily keep up with it becomes sensible to just not read it because being influenced you don't want to be stealing other people's ideas and it's easier if somebody

does say that happened in this fan work to be able to say that's a coincidence because we don't read them okay this question's from kelsey dawn scott okay and it's one i i personally you know feel quite strongly about right right is martin going to be okay and i know the answer to this one right well uh just to put this to bed once and for all no martin is not going to be okay i don't think anyone's going to be okay. No, no one's going to be okay. That's basically how horror works. No, but Martin especially. Martin especially. Stop saying things like this.

I'm going to move on from that question. Yes, no, please, please do. Next one is from Elise Telema. How is the format of the show going to work now that the archivist is no longer in the archives? Since there are no statements unless he finds them, is season three going to be to work now that the Archivist is no longer in the archives? Since there are no statements, unless he finds them, is season three going to be more centred on the Archivist just as a character? Or will supporting cast fill his role at the Institute?

I'm not going to get into this one in too much detail because it's got elements of spoilers for what will be happening in season three. I will say that the episodes will still primarily function as a standalone statement story with surrounding plot. And we've always said that. Absolutely. It will, at least for the beginning part, be bouncing back between the archivist and the Institute. But I'm not going to say any more than that. In that case case sort of linked to that actually we have uh luigi malinis sure are you planning for more unconnected foreign

stories for example things based in asia and basically spooks from other other countries because we've been quite obviously western european yeah we're very we're very uh i mean england-centric to a certain degree but uh yes i'm very much hoping to expand the scope of the statements a bit realistically it's always going to be a minority for two reasons firstly they take a lot longer to research and write because these are not cultures that i myself am from i am always acutely aware of potentially doing them a disservice there's a lot more time than needs to go into research and checking and just making sure that i'm doing them justice also to a certain degree whereas with a lot of your classic western monsters i feel in a position to take them and twist them a bit have a bit of fun with them see what uh see what

i can do with them i'm never 100 that comfortable with it has an appropriationist vibe yeah i don't want to do that stuff with um creatures from other cultures so there's uh so the short answer is yes i would uh i'm very hopeful of going a bit more global in terms of our stories over the next few seasons. But the majority of the story is going to remain centred on Britain, basically. So tied to that is a question that we get quite a lot, actually. Simple one, really. How much research do you do for each episode? It varies wildly. Usually, I would say at least as much time as I actually spend writing the thing if it's not

something that I myself have direct personal experience of I will generally do as much research as I can beforehand something like fatigue for instance didn't need to do any research at all I have not slept plenty but anything where it's a job or an experience I mean I've I've never been caving for instance and that was a lot of research and it's a job or an experience. I mean, I've never been caving, for instance, and that was a lot of research. I've never been diving, all this sort of stuff. So there's a lot of research that goes into it. Locked in a space station?

I mean, define that one time. Yeah, sure. It's not really a space station. It's fine. Another question here from Adriana Rojas. Are there any book plans in the mix? Because we would all love to have another addition to libraries of forbidden books. I'm going to have to bounce this one to Alex a bit.

Well, I'm going to have to bounce this one to Alex a bit. Certainly, I'm very keen to get certainly the statements as they as they have been broadcast and transcribed in a book format in terms of wider or additional stuff. No current plans, but who knows? Sure. So sort of stepping in here to sort of talk about the wider picture. It's another one of those yes, no answers. Are we interested in this kind of thing? wider picture it's another one of those yes no answers are we interested in this kind of thing yeah like obviously but at the same time it's a case of these things take a lot of infrastructure and a lot of time to set up and similarly we've said it before and we'll say it again the archives were made for audio or made for an audio format and elements of that mean that you can't just

you can't copy and paste to a different medium so yes it's a thing we're interested in no it's not a thing that i can say guess what this is happening next week i am pretty confident that by the end of the magnus archives as a whole we will be putting them out in some some form yeah i can come down and say that yeah absolutely this one's from simon freeston where do you get your inspiration for the monsters and the books? Everywhere. Literally everywhere. I am constantly aware that I need to find spooky ideas for things.

And if any of my friends are listening to this, any conversation I've had with you in the last two years, I've been secretly looking for spooks that I can steal from you. Okay. Now this one's diving into a bit more of the matter sure it's from erin lindsey will we learn more about elias's history and motives yes good moving on ali maloney when are we going to get a live show so this is one that i think i should probably step into again on this logistics side. So we are hoping to do some live shows next year.

I cannot go into more detail on that because again, it takes massive amounts of time, effort, money, planning, and I don't want to start giving out times and dates and programs when things are still very much up in the air. Another question again from Ali Manoni. I'm massively impressed with Jonathan's writing

and would love to know how he got to this point. What were you doing before the Magnus Archives? A question we've answered again before. But, I mean, the answer is writing a lot of stuff that I never finished. I've always been doing some form of writing to one degree or another. Plus space piracy. Oh, yeah. some form of writing to one degree or another.

Plus space piracy. Oh, yeah. And previously the most complete works I've done were with The Mechanisms, so concept albums. And it's storytelling and lyrics, so while less voluminous than The Magnus Archives, there's still quite a lot of work and writing gone into that. Aside from that, just a lot of unfinished projects. Well, you design a lot of games as well, don't you?

Oh, yeah. I mean, when I'm procrastinating, my brain will often just start designing games, which is interesting but irritating sometimes. This next one's from Daniel Morales. Will you go further into the story? Will you go further into the history of Mary Key and the Magnus Institute? The Magnus Institute, absolutely.

Mary Key, yes, to a certain degree, but she's not going to be the focus. Yeah, yeah. This one's from Steve Bread via Reddit. Much of the exposition in the finale seemed to directly address fan theories about the wider story arc especially all of the stuff about dimensions and gods and things like that

was this a deliberate nod to the Red String Brigade? that's more of a complicated answer than it might seem at first on the one hand yes because the Magnus Archives for all else it is it has a lot of mystery elements and I always feel with this lot of mystery elements and i

always feel with this sort of mystery you owe it to those people who are invested in the mystery to play fair with them when you're revealing something you want to be clear and if they have particular theories that you are aware of it's only fair to address those theories as directly as you can without breaking anything also there is the fact that within the world of the actual story john and martin i mean they are the red string brigade in the in the world they are trying to make those same connections they're trying to figure this they're literally getting a paycheck to do it yeah exactly so it's very useful actually to have a group of people who are trying to figure these things out on the outside to look at and think ah that's what

people think is going on at the moment that's probably the sort of questions that the characters will be asking i would tack on to that as a sort of additional thing is that we're all we're all spending our time right now in a kind of golden story age by which i mean we're all drowning in stories and content to consume and so on but obviously as part of that is we're all trained to listen to stories now and part of that is i mean i doubt anyone who's listening to the magnus archives has never heard a horror and part of that is you are trained to think about these things in certain ways these stories take certain shapes so honestly genuinely as much as we have been sort of monitoring the meta

there is an element when we started out where it was like look things that people are going to think are gods dimensions and and like it's it isn't a huge leap it's more about the specificity i'd say the stuff that's um the stuff that generally is a response to uh the forums or the tumblr or reddit or this sort of stuff is very rarely the wide-scale stuff like, oh, are they gods? Is it different dimensions? It's generally the really specific stuff where someone on one of the message boards

will have said, oh, wait, what happened to this character? And I'll think, oh, yeah, I've never actually specifically said what happened in that case. I'll drop a line or two in there just to clarify that yeah yeah another one from Steve Bread sure

so with this in mind and without giving anything away can we say if there are any plot elements that haven't been as discussed as much as they probably should to be honest no you guys are really on it you really are

your real problem is overthinking things the number of times i've seen a a theory that's like oh you figured it out then and then their next one will be like oh no that can't work it does so i uh last question again from steve bread uh this one again i'm probably gonna have to field is overall the voice acting for the series and this season this latest season especially has been excellent. Oh, thank you. And judging by some of the...

And thank you on behalf of everyone else. Yes. And judging by some of the guest cast surnames, we're guessing that you've relied a little bit on family and friends, but could we go into more detail about the casting process? Sure. So to pull back the curtain again,

when we originally set this up, we didn't have a big infrastructure. We didn't have any kind of pipelines. it was very much us doing the best we could with what we had and like i said it relied a lot on previous contacts from theater industry for me again friends who have been doing this that kind of thing however i would say going forward we are looking at formalizing um casting and so on. However, unfortunately, for a few, let's be honest, quite obvious reasons, it's not going to be open casting calls to any and all fans because, A, we will drown. We will just drown under people who want to be involved,

which is absolutely flattering, but a logistical nightmare when you put the business hat on. And the other element is, as well, as we've been saying, we are trying to get this formalised in terms of proper pay for professional actors and so on. Part of that, I'm afraid, is that going through standard channels, which would be things like eventually we're looking at agencies and casting call networks rather than just putting out a general shout-out,

I'm afraid. So this next question is obviously relating to a certain bit of poetry the excerpt has made its way in specifically how would martin fair in a vogon poetry contest i have a response here from annal oh yeah i was gonna say because the majority of the poetry isn't actually written by me um annal who runs our uh social media is actually a poet um and so we've we've drafted him in to do most of martin's poetry overseen and i add a little bit here and there but most of it's his work so for all of the patrons out there you'll have already noticed

that certain uh extra bits of martin's poetry have managed to make its way into the patreon feed so if you're not already subscribed to it there's's a really good reason. But I do have some aggressively mediocre poetry on there. I have Anil's answer here, which is how would he prefer? Probably not. Well, Martin's poetry is pleasantly middle of the road. It's not great, but it doesn't want to make you tear your ears off either. That said, Anil himself has placed second and third in genuine Vogue on poetry slams. Which are a lot of fun if you ever get a chance to go to one. So, sort of, as an answer? Make of that what you will. I'm afraid part one of our Q&A episode ends there.

Part two will be available next week, so until then, we really appreciate your patience. Thanks for listening. Hello, it's Corrine, the voice of Simon Fairchart from the Magnus Archives, letting you know about our sponsor, Audible. For fans of heart-racing, bone-chilling, and mind-bending stories, Audible has everything you need. Audible is the leader in audiobooks, so you'll always find the best and freshest selection of mysteries and thrillers to choose from. Sometimes you just want to get lost in a classic whodunit, and sometimes you want to get wrapped up in a twisted new mystery where the

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